But the Class of 2020 were determined they wouldn’t be the first to do without their traditional school formals.

For North Queensland’s St Augustine’s College in Cairns. that meant a formal with strict distancing policies – including no dancing – and a formal held in a cane shed kilometres out of town.

“It was a little bit strange because you had the DJ and the music but you weren’t allowed to get up and dance,” student Connor Munro said.

“Credit must go to all the teachers because they put in a lot of hard work to make that event happen, so we’re just really thankful.”

The ‘guinea pig grade’

This cohort of Queensland Year 12s was the first through prep when it was formally introduced to schools in 2007, the first to do Year 7 as secondary school and the first Year 12s to get Australian Tertiary Admission Ranks (ATARs) instead of Overall Positions (OPs).

“We’re the guinea pig grade,” Connor Munro said.

“Now COVID in Year 12 — obviously that’s not something they planned for. “If anything, everything we’ve gone through has brought us more together and we’re going to be the most resilient grade of all time.”

Fellow Year 12 student Jack Miller said he had not expected to even have a formal.

“A couple of weeks beforehand when I realised it was actually going ahead I realised I needed to get a partner,” he said. “It was still a fantastic excuse to get dressed up in suits and ties … a little return to normalcy was such a morale boost.”

Not a ‘normal formal’

The college usually held its formal at a five-star hotel in the Cairns CBD but faced with the prospect of having to split the attendees over two function rooms it decided to hold the event in a shed on a former student’s cane farm.

The school’s COVID Safe Plan was approved about 10 days out from the event and police visited during the night to check compliance.

Students enjoyed a red carpet arrival to the formal.

St Augustine’s head of Year 12, Andrew Dorahy, had overseen 18 school formals and said this one was “certainly unique”.

“We were always committed if at all possible to have a formal in whatever guise,” he said.

“We heavily suspected it wasn’t going to be a normal formal … but we were very pleased that we were able to go ahead.”It was unfortunate we had to cancel the dancing, but c’est la vie as they say!”

Dorahy said students traditionally performed a gypsy tap dance at the formal and had started rehearsing before Catholic Education advised it could not go ahead.

“We had the go-ahead from the local diocesan authorities but unfortunately the next week the Brisbane authorities said under no circumstances was dancing to take place,” he said.

“We were still very keen to have the formal because we didn’t think we had much of a window, so we organised some karaoke with mixed success and we had trivia quiz, which went off very well.”

The students had a red carpet arrival at the school before being bussed to the cane farm.

Parents were not allowed at the arrivals so the younger boarding school students lined the corridors and balconies to cheer the seniors and their partners.

Dorahy said the students had coped very well with a difficult year.

“It’s been a topsy-turvy year for them — has been for the staff as well — but they’ve been thrown all sorts of curve balls and I think they’ve handled it really well with resilience, perseverance and patience.”

Teacher Andrew Dorahy with two members of his graduating class.